


A Miraculously Murderous May

by verfound



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Ch8 - Start of DLM AU, Character Tags is a Hit List, Check ch notes for additional tags/warnings, Dead Like Me AU, F/M, Hardcore Character Death, Just assume it's gonna hurt, Murder May, Pain, Prompt Fic, Softcore Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:29:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 17,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23951590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verfound/pseuds/verfound
Summary: 25 responses to a Bad News Bingo Card, in which everyone is a potential target and Ver tries to see how much pain can be elicited in 500 words.Or: what started as the above and quickly train wrecked after Ch8 into a Dead Like Me Lukanette AU, where people are still dying but worldbuilding is happening in little vignettes for an AU that will become a Proper Story once others are done.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Juleka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 176
Kudos: 85
Collections: Crikey!  A Wild Dingo has Appeared!





	1. Over the Shoulder Carry (Pegasus)

**Author's Note:**

> This is Knit’s fault I swear. xD She found a Bad Things Happen Bingo card & thought it was up my alley. I said I have intentionally avoided them to prevent PAIN, made a joke about “gee I wonder how much PAIN I can inflict in 500 words?”, and suddenly Murder May became a thing (MalcolmReynolds/livrever is also doing it – check her out!). As long as I stay away from mermaids and dragons. xD Going for the entire cast to spare the Lukanette Fam an entire month of PAIN, so check each chapter for the intended target!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pegasus is down. Roi Singe has to get him out of there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 01 May 2020  
> Prompt: Over-the-Shoulder-Carry  
> Character/Pairing: Lê Chiến Kim | Roi Singe, Max Kanté | Pegasus  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: It’s not explicitly stated anywhere, but I was thinking they were all older – maybe not quite adults yet but close?

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

He wondered, briefly, if this was how Viperion always felt, watching each second tick by. Searching for a way to undo it. To fix their mistakes. To make it _right_.

…but Viperion wasn’t here anymore. The snake hero hadn’t been seen in _months_.

(“He’s fine,” Ladybug had assured them, when his absence had first been noticed. Ignoring Chat’s scoff. “His civilian life is taking him out of the country for a bit. He’ll be back soon enough.”)

Just not soon enough to fix things now.

An explosion sent a shower of rubble down on his left, and Roi Singe sprang into action. He bobbed and wove around the falling debris. Chat Noir was screaming somewhere above him, hurling insult after insult at the akuma – but the King wasn’t worried about the akuma anymore. He distantly heard Ladybug shout something at him, but Pegasus was down. Pegasus wasn’t moving.

“Hang in there, lil’ buddy,” Roi Singe said, dropping to his knees beside his teammate. He tried not to pay attention to the blood matting down his braids. His sunglasses – his Miraculous – were sideways across his face. Roi Singe spared one moment to straighten them, too quickly, before he hoisted him up and over his shoulder. He was back on his feet, darting across the battlefield and back to safety (was anywhere safe anymore?) before the next wave of explosions hit.

He dove into an alley just as a car hit the wall beside him, making him stumble past the dumpster on the end. When he hit his knees and lowered Pegasus to the ground, it wasn’t Pegasus anymore.

…he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Max on the ground before him. Some part of his mind – some distant part, beyond the roaring of the blood in his ears and adrenaline in his veins – said _of course_ it was Max. It had always been Max – who else could it have been?

But Max had never been this pale before, not since that summer his appendix almost burst and Kim had made another mad dash through the streets of Paris, his best friend groaning over his shoulder as he tried to get him to a doctor in time. Roi Singe didn’t know if a doctor could fix him this time, though. He didn’t even know if Ladybug could, and Ladybug could fix _anything_.

“H-hey, Boss Bug?” he choked into his staff, flicking the button that activated the comms unit.

“A little busy, Roi!” Ladybug’s hurried voice answered. She grunted, and a clattering – like she had dropped her yoyo – echoed over the speaker.

“Pegasus is down,” Roi Singe said. His fingers pressed harder against Max’s wrist, searching. Hoping. Dreading.

“I know that! I saw you carry –” she shouted, but he shook his head. Even if she couldn’t see.

“No,” he said, cutting her off. The comms went silent. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. His fingers were shaking. “Pegasus is down. Max…Max is gone.”


	2. Be Careful What You Wish For (Gabriel, Adrien)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawkmoth finally gets the Miraculous, but Hawkmoth was never the real villain in the first place...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Be Careful What You Wish For  
> Character/Pairing: Adrien Agreste, Emilie Agreste, Gabriel Agreste, Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: K Plus / PG / Most Ages  
> Notes: I had sold my soul to the devil that is Senti!Adrien. I was gonna die on that hill…until one of the LBSCers proposed this alternative. Astruc is too much of a coward to give us the Villain/plot we deserve, I’m afraid.

“Please,” Ladybug gasped, her fingers prying at the hand wrapped firmly around her throat. Chat Noir’s green eyes narrowed, his lips pulling back into a grimace. His hand was trembling. She could feel him fighting. “Don’t…don’t do this, Chaton.”

“I’m sorry, m’Lady,” he whispered. His voice was strangled, as if _she_ were the one choking _him_. She sucked in a breath, again pulling in vain at the black, gloved fingers holding her against the rail.

“Hurry _up_ , Adrien,” Hawkmoth snapped behind him, his voice still and deadly. Like the steel point of his cane. Beside him, Mayura’s hand tightened around her fan.

“I’m sorry,” Chat choked out, his eyes closing. He moved quickly – too quickly. He had no sooner released her throat than he snatched at her earrings, ripping the Miraculous from her ears. She screamed, falling to her knees as pink light engulfed her. When it faded, Marinette was glaring at Chat Noir with tear-filled eyes. “M-Marinette?”

“Enough of this, Adrien,” Hawkmoth said, grabbing Chat Noir’s hand, taking the earrings, and ripping the ring from his finger. Adrien gawked up at the villain when the green light faded. “Be a good boy. Do as your father says and _stay down_.”

Marinette screamed as Hawkmoth’s fist connected solidly with Adrien’s jaw. The blond crumbled in a heap beside her. Hawkmoth turned steely eyes on her, drew his fist back, and then her world went dark.

Her eyes opened on an empty coffin. Nathalie Sancoeur was unconscious on the grass before it. Adrien stood silently behind her, glassy eyes staring blankly ahead. A blonde woman Marinette had only seen in photos stood before him, one hand resting on his shoulder as the other stroked his cheek. The Peacock Miraculous glinted from her lapel. Gabriel Agreste stood to their side, the warm smile on his face so foreign it sent chills down her spine.

“You have done so well,” Emilie Agreste said. Her voice was feather-soft, and yet it echoed through the chamber like thunder. “I knew I could count on you, my most trusted creation.”

Her eyes slid over to Gabriel, but there was something…off…about her smile. It was colder than Gabriel’s. Crueler. Marinette swallowed, pushing herself up on her elbows. Emilie touched the star pendant she wore, her fingers brushing over the intricate knotwork.

“I release you,” she whispered, lifting her fingers away from the pendant with a _snap_. Marinette screamed as a feather – an _amok_ – lifted from the pendant, blowing away in the swirl of purple-black energy Adrien had become.

…he had been a sentimonster.

This entire time.

“NO!!!!!” Marinette screamed, struggling to her feet. Emilie turned to her, that smile turning sinister.

“Ah, Ladybug,” she said. “You’re awake. I must thank you. With your Miraculous, I can finally release these paltry imitations and _properly_ restore my family.” She brushed a hand along Gabriel’s cheek. “I release you.”

Emilie’s eyes flashed as she looked through the dark energy Gabriel Agreste had become, ignoring Marinette’s scream.

“Duusu, spread my feathers.”


	3. Falling From a Great Height (Nino)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took Nino Lahiffe eight seconds to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Falling from a Great Height  
> Character/Pairing: Nino Lahiffe & Adrien Agreste, Nino Lahiffe & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Nino Lahiffe/Alya Césaire  
> Rating: K Plus / PG / Most Ages  
> Notes: My degree was in words, not numbers, and my math is Kitchen Math. I Googled the time. If I’m wrong, blame the Physics guy giving homework help online. xD

It took Nino Lahiffe’s body eight seconds to hit the ground once Mayura tossed him from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Give or take.

Eight seconds from the time she slipped the Turtle Miraculous from Carapace’s wrist. A second spared for her eyes to widen as she recognized Adrien’s best friend. The one who liked music and bubbles. A second wasted as she flicked her wrist and sent him sailing.

It took Nino Lahiffe eight seconds to die, but for the friends watching? Oh, it took so much longer.

Chat Noir saw the green light fade and realized his best friend had been under the goggles the entire time. Adrien saw the skeptical look shot through thick glasses, the uncertainty of whether or not _Chloé Bourgeois’s oldest friend_ could be trusted. The warm smile and firm handshake as he said it was time for him to make some _new_ friends, and all the great people that had come into his life since. The surprise birthday party. The double dates. The breakups. Helping him pick out a ring that was just thrown into a storm drain anyway. Sneaking into the sewers to find the ring when Alya changed her mind. The battles against countless akumas. In those eight seconds, Chat Noir relived six years with the greatest friend he’d ever had.

Ladybug had always known who was under Carapace’s hood, so she wasn’t surprised when it was Nino being thrown from that tower. She was guilty. She had chosen him in the first place, so she knew this was her fault. Marinette had known Nino so long she didn’t even remember the first time they met. She thought it was at school, but it could have been in the bakery. They had been so young then. They were still young now. She didn’t know how old she was when she met Nino, but in those eight seconds she felt every one of his nineteen years like they were her own. They might as well have been.

Rena Rouge knew. Rena had always known. She never saw Carapace, hero of Paris. She always saw Nino. Her Nino. That quirky kid who always had his headphones in and was such a dork around her best friend. The kid she had more in common with than she had ever realized, who turned out to be a surprisingly good kisser. Among other things. The guy she loved more than she’d ever willingly admit, even to herself. The guy she almost lost when she had taken that internship in New York, who had waited for her when she took too long to come back. Who had still been there when her plane had touched down, waiting with her favorite flowers. Rena didn’t see the eight seconds, or the six years leading up to them. Or at least she didn’t feel _just_ that. When Nino Lahiffe hit the ground with a sickening _thud_ , she felt the death of Alya Lahiffe and all their years to come.


	4. Buried in Rubble (Tom, Sabine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not every bad thing that happens in Paris is Hawkmoth's fault. Sometimes accidents happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Buried in Rubble  
> Character/Pairing: Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: K / G / All Ages  
> Notes: The identity reveal no one in Paris asked for.

Not every bad thing that happens in Paris is Hawkmoth’s fault.

Usually it was. Most times. Especially lately. But bad things still happen, even outside of Hawkmoth. It wasn’t Hawkmoth’s fault Notre Dame burned.

It also wasn’t Hawkmoth who ordered the construction outside the most popular bakery in Paris. It wasn’t Hawkmoth who failed to check if the gas was actually turned off before they started cutting into the street. Hawkmoth wasn’t operating the equipment.

The closest Hawkmoth came to causing the explosion that destroyed the T&S Boulangerie (and severely damaged many of the surrounding buildings) was the akuma that found Ladybug across town when the building blew.

Ladybug had just purified the akuma was swinging back towards Françoise DuPont when the explosion shook the city. Whatever her yoyo had been secured to disappeared in the blast, and she went hurtling towards the street below. She landed in a crowd of citizens and students, all who had rushed out to see what had happened. She didn’t even know what had happened. She was pushing herself up, groaning as she rubbed her head, when she looked up and saw the burning rubble.

“MAMAN! PAPA!”

The crowd parted at the shriek, as if they had only just realized their beloved hero was on the ground among them – or had been. She was on her feet as soon as she realized what she was seeing, running towards the rubble and screaming for…her parents?

Ladybug didn’t notice the crowd. She didn’t hear the sirens drawing closer, or the frantic beeping of her Miraculous in her ears. She didn’t notice the busted pipes spraying water into the street, the leaking gas that was still burning, or the smoke choking out her cries. She didn’t even notice her classmates – her _best friend_ , standing with her mobile raised and jaw open as she watched the rubble in horrified silence. She didn’t even notice Chat Noir landing beside her until his gloved hands reached in to help her move some of the larger stones.

She had already cast the Miracle Cure. This wasn’t because of Hawkmoth.

She couldn’t fix this.

“Papa!” she screamed, digging blindly through the debris. There was one last frantic, ignored beep from her earrings before pink light engulfed her. The stone and metal cut into her hands, but she didn’t notice. “Maman! _Please!”_

“M-Marinette –” Chat choked out, but she screamed when his arms were suddenly around her waist and pulling her back. She fought him as he deposited her by Alya, waiting as the emergency crews rushed in.

“NO!” she screamed, trying to push away. He was stronger than her in the suit, and he held firm. Without her own transformation to protect her, he couldn’t let her near the demolished building. “My parents are in there! Chat, my parents…my par…”

He held her as she collapsed against his chest. He looked up at Alya helplessly. Ladybug was Marinette. Marinette’s parents were trapped somewhere under that rubble.

He didn’t know what to do.


	5. Impaled Chest (Marinette)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luka and Marinette were having a perfectly lovely evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Impaled Chest  
> Character/Pairing: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Luka Couffaine  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: It shows incredible restraint on my part that it took me five days to bring the OTP in. (If you’re new to this corner, Lukanette is endgame and I only ship Adrien with Therapy. Not that ships are what matter in this collection. xD)

“Ok, ok, I got it!” Marinette giggled, swinging their hands between them. Luka’s eyebrows lifted, his lips quirking in a smile as he watched her. She danced around from his side to his front, a grin on her lips. He stopped walking and squeezed her hand, waiting. He’d wait forever for her. “Most embarrassing music misconception. Go!”

“Music misconception?” he asked, his eyebrows lifting higher. She rolled her eyes and gestured with the hand holding her ice cream. He half expected the top scoop to slide off, but her treat stayed intact.

“Yeah!” she said. “Like…ok. Song lyrics. Something you thought you heard, and you swore that was the song until you found out what they were really saying.”

“Like that Bon Jovi song where you thought he was saying _there’s still steel in this dirt I was born in_?” he chuckled. She nodded emphatically.

“Exactly! Though I still say my lyrics are better,” she huffed. He bent down and pecked a kiss against her nose, grinning.

“Of course they are,” he agreed. She was still looking up at him, her eyes shining in the evening light. He bent back down and kissed her properly, taking a moment to hold her close before they continued on their way. She fell back in stride beside him, squeezing his hand. He thought for a moment before snapping his fingers. “Ok. This one’s kinda embarrassing. You know that song _In The Air Tonight?_ ”

“I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord?” she sang, and he nodded.

“I was sixteen before I realized they were saying ‘oh Lord’,” he confessed with a grin. Her mouth dropped.

“What?” she laughed.

“Swear to God. I spent ninety percent of my life thinking he was singing _I can feel it coming in the air tonight, hold on_ ,” he said. He shook his head, his own laugh escaping him. “I still have no idea why Ma never corrected me.”

“How’d you finally find out?” she asked. He winced.

“…Dingo,” he admitted. She snorted, and he groaned. “I know, I know. He still hasn’t let me live it down.”

“I can’t believe you thought he was saying…actually, I guess I can?” she laughed. She squeezed his hand before she spun away from him, throwing her arms out wide. “I can feel it coming in the air tonight, hold o-!”

It happened so fast.

One moment she was laughing, singing out loudly and off-key to get a feel for his misunderstood lyrics. The next thing he knew her eyes were wide, and her ice cream had dropped with a wet _plop_ on the ground. Her mouth moved wordlessly, the song stuck in her throat. But there were other sounds: rumblings, explosions in the park around them, the screams that usually accompanied an akuma attack. Shaking ground bursting forth in jagged spikes, like the one that had risen behind Marinette. The tip that was protruding from her chest. The thick red staining the white of her dress.

“…Marinette?”


	6. Cradling Someone in Their Arms (Marinette)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viperion couldn't let his timer run out. If he did...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Cradling Someone in Their Arms  
> Character/Pairing: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: K / G / All Ages  
> Notes: The song used is “Ten Thousand Miles”, which is a traditional ditty. My preferred version is by Altan, but Quick found this wonderful version by James Findlay (I point you to the voice crack/warble in the final verse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VU-Av8DAj8&feature=youtu.be

“Fare you well, my own true love…farewell for a while…I’m going away…”

She loved his voice. Once she’d finally heard him sing, she’d told him she fell in love with him all over again. He had taken every chance he could after that to serenade her, if it meant he could keep her heart a little bit longer.

Of course he’d take a second chance to sing for her one last time.

“But I’ll be back,” Viperion sang softly, his voice barely a whisper. Barely louder than Marinette’s own labored breathing. He pressed his face against her shoulder, breathing deeply. She didn’t smell right. She was never supposed to smell like metal and dirt and… “…if I go ten thousand miles…”

His arms tightened around her. He wanted to drop his transformation, to feel her skin under his fingers. But if he did that…if he released Sass, if he let these five minutes end…

“Ten thousand miles, my own true love…ten thousand miles or more…” he continued, brushing a kiss against her neck. He tried to keep the arm around her waist still, knowing the worst of her injuries were there. All he wanted was to hold her closer. To make this better.

…to go back to five minutes before their five minutes began, when he could set the timer sooner and stop this from happening in the first place. Her body spasmed, tensing as it jerked away from him, and he whispered empty platitudes as he brushed a hand through her hair.

“And the rocks may melt, and the seas may burn, if I no more return…” he sang through her pain, through her tremors. He brushed her blood-slicked hair back, pressing a kiss against her temple before her head fell back against his shoulder with a weak moan. He leaned his head against the wall of the alley they’d taken shelter in. Took a breath. Swallowed around the lump in his throat. Ignored the blue-eyed kwami watching desperately from his knee. “Oh come back, my own true love…”

In the distance, he could hear the battle raging on. He could hear Chat and Rena screaming at the akuma. Could hear Roi Singe louder than them all. He could hear the explosions that had caused this as clearly as he heard her voice echoing in his mind, telling him they were running out of time. Beyond, the battle raged on, but here, in this alley…here they had time.

He still had another minute, maybe two.

“Stay a while with me…” he begged, his voice breaking on a sob. His fingers continued to brush through her hair, even as her breathing slowed. He had lived this moment so many times already. He knew what happened next. What always happened next. “…oh come back, my own true love…”

Her chest stilled, her melody going silent in his head. He sucked in a shuddering breath, glancing at the snake head on his bangle. He just needed five more minutes…just five…

“Second Chance…”


	7. Locked in a Freezer (Jagged)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jagged Stone is a fucking idiot. Fang can't be blamed for being what she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Locked in a Freezer  
> Character/Pairing: Jagged Stone, Penny Rolling, Fang  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: I was asked for a Funny Death, so I dug into my Dead Like Me murder days. And what better target than Papa Stone? ;D

Jagged Stone was a fucking idiot.

That was something Penny Rolling was well aware of after all this time. It was something she had been well aware of before she had signed up for her gig as his manager. It was also something his old manager had warned her of when she’d first been hired.

(…well. _Warned_ was maybe a little generous. _Cackled madly as he shoved the blackberry in her hand and wished her luck_ was more apt.)

Being aware of the fact and actually dealing with it when the fallout from his stupidity reared its ugly head were two separate matters entirely.

They had been enjoying a perfectly lovely brunch at Le Grand Paris. As it had been a slower day, Fang had even been allowed to join them with minimal protest. Jagged had maybe been half-listening as they reviewed his upcoming day’s schedule when he decided the meat Chef Césaire had sent out for Fang wasn’t as fresh as it could’ve been. When his demands for fresher meat were failed to be met, he’d barged his way into the kitchen to _find his own damn meat – totally not rock-n-roll, guys!_ That had been fifteen minutes ago. Penny had already finished her crepes, and his eggs had long since gone cold. With a glance towards the kitchen doors, Penny picked up Jagged’s plate with a sigh and placed it on the ground next to Fang, who eagerly gobbled up the eggs.

The old croc was really only picky about her macarons, anyway.

Penny was halfway through pulling up Jagged’s number when all hell broke loose.

The shouting started in the kitchen and was muffled until the door was kicked open. Jagged emerged, his face a furious red and twisted in rage. He was waving a steak in his hand and shouting about freezers. Chef Césaire was rushing after him, also shouting, as two other members of the kitchen staff followed nervously behind. When he spotted Penny watching warily from their table, Jagged demanded she get André, while Chef Césaire insisted that wouldn’t be necessary. Jagged whipped around and insisted it was – “I was _viciously attacked_ by your staff, Marlena! They locked me in the goddamned _freezer!”_ – still waving the steak around his head.

After all this time, Penny honestly should have seen it coming. She really should have.

Because a plate of eggs wasn’t enough to fill Fang up, so when the croc saw the juicy meat being waved around so teasingly in front of her of _course_ she’d lunge. Of _course_ she would miss the meat entirely and latch her teeth into Jagged’s ass instead. And of _course_ , because she was a _motherfucking crocodile honestly Jagged what the hell is wrong with you_ , she’d whip her owner into the air before slamming him onto the ground hard enough to…well. Penny was pretty sure Jagged wasn’t supposed to make that sound when he touched down.

She was also pretty sure his neck wasn’t supposed to bend that way.


	8. Punctured Lung (Luka; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luka Couffaine had no fucking clue what had just happened. (...he died. That's what fucking happened.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Punctured Lung  
> Character/Pairing: Luka Couffaine, Mendeleiev  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: Went 100 words over the limit because SOMEONE got me going on a Dead Like Me AU, and then THIS happened, and I am Not Sorry At All. The dangerous thing about these prompt collections is how many of them sit here demanding to be continued. (This will DEFINITELY be continued. I am DLM trash, and @semi-slaughtomatic hasn’t just handed me a plunny. She’s given me an entire fucking army.) Rating here is for language and the general nature of Dead Like Me.
> 
> If you aren’t familiar with DLM, basically it’s about a girl who dies young and becomes a Grim Reaper. It’s only two seasons (and a movie that is honestly mediocre but has some good moments and you watch bc you loved the show, not bc it was good) – and short seasons, so like 26 eps total? It follows George as she tries to navigate death with this ragtag group of reapers, and honestly the show is more about life than it is about death (though it has some EXCELLENT dark humor/death scenes – “Let’s play High Risk Factor!”). Plus, Mason (Callum Blue). Mason, Mason, Mason…

Luka Couffaine had no fucking clue what had just happened.

One minute, some green-eyed, brown-haired, too-handsy…he would never say _slut_ but God if the term didn’t seem applicable to some people…was pressing into his side, trying in vain to get his phone number or buy him a drink or _something_ while he (politely) tried to tell her _he wasn’t fucking interested, thanks, he had a show to do_ , and the next he was standing outside the burning venue, frantic patrons _running through him_ as sirens wailed in the distance. He remembered the girl grabbing his arm as he tried to escape, her hand brushing along his tattooed skin in a gentle caress that quite frankly freaked him the fuck out, before he left the bar with the water he’d been sent to get. He’d ignored Ivan’s knowing look as he hopped on stage, tossing him a bottle and telling him to shut up. Rose had grabbed the mic, done their intro, and then…

What the fuck had happened?

“It’s disorienting, I know,” a cool voice to his side said. He turned his head to find a tall woman in a pressed white coat standing beside him. Her purple hair was cut short and swept away from a face sporting smart black glasses. She was busy lighting a cigarette. He had always hated the things. Usually he was happy in the back of the band with his guitar, but their manager had been trying to get him to sing more for years. Smoking was bad for his voice – the smoke from the shows was bad enough. The woman looked up, her blue eyes flashing behind her glasses. “I’d offer you one, but until we sort a body out for you it’d be fairly useless. Philece Mendeleiev. Mme. Mendeleiev to you.”

She held out her hand, but he just stared at it. She shrugged and stuffed it back in her pocket.

“Call me Philece and I’ll make that chest wound you’re sporting seem like the best thing that could have happened to you,” she said. He was pretty sure it was supposed to be a joke, but one look down at his chest and he didn’t find it very funny. He hadn’t screamed like that since he was a kid – not that anyone around them seemed to notice. Mendeleiev smirked. “Best thing to happen to me, actually. Not that you had any control over it, but I should thank you. Lila Rossi was an obnoxious little shit, and I’m glad to be rid of her. Hopefully you won’t be as much of a pain in my ass.”

Another voice screaming drowned out his own, and he jerked his head up to see his sister pushing her way through the crowd. He didn’t know if he found it ironic or not that Officer Roger was the one to catch her and hold her back.

“Faulty pyrotechnics,” Mendeleiev continued, ignoring his distraction. “Management’ll fix that up after your autopsy, but at least you can’t feel the punctured lung.”

“What…what happened?” he choked out, jerking away from her as she reached over and plucked a piece of shrapnel out of his chest. She turned it in the dim light, frowning at it like it was some sort of science experiment.

“You, Luka Couffaine, are recently deceased,” she said. She made it sound so…clinical. Matter of fact. “Unfortunately for you, you were a Last Reap, which means you will be joining my team of Grim Reapers.”

She smirked at him, flicking the shrapnel over her shoulder.

“Welcome to Death, M. Couffaine. I doubt you’ll like it.”


	9. I Will Only Slow You Down (Juleka & Marinette; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juleka likes the new, young designer at Gabriel. She thinks her dead brother would have, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I Will Only Slow You Down  
> Character/Pairing: Juleka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: These weren’t supposed to be connected (just stand alones, maybe a few tied together), but apparently once the DLM bug bites…I am amazed and delighted at the response, though. xD (Hey, look, no death today! Some worldbuilding for the AU that will lead to Mari’s death in a later prompt.)

Juleka fiddled with her camera, glancing up at the sudden squeak. She smirked as she watched the young designer apologizing to Victor (one of the lighting guys). Victor grinned, laughing off the near-miss and telling her not to worry about it. Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s klutziness was well-known around the studio by now – about as well-known as her kindness. She was one of the youngest designers to work for the notorious Gabriel Agreste, but she was also one of the best Juleka had seen in years. She was also refreshingly different, for a Gabriel designer. She was nice. Kind to everyone. Shit, she even took the time to learn the names of the crew. Most designers around here barely took the time to learn the names of their models.

Juleka hoped Marinette could hold onto that. She was just what the fashion world needed, if she could hold onto that.

“Ok! Got ‘em!” Marinette chirped, bouncing over to her side. She nudged Juleka’s arm and held up two shirts. “Which one do you think?”

“You’re the designer, Mari,” Juleka said, her voice as soft as it ever was. She lowered her camera and nodded towards the model. To the casual observer, Adrien Agreste was busy flirting with the redhead fixing his makeup. Juleka knew he was just a kind-hearted idiot being nice. “I just take the pictures.”

“Pffft, please,” Marinette scoffed, turning her back on the model before she could see the way his gaze chased after her. It was almost sad, really. Juleka knew the story as well as anyone: school friends, crushing on each other for years, but never making a move. Now that Marinette had been _discovered_ by his father, half the fashion house expected him to man up and secure her for _Gabriel’s_ future success. The rest expected him to marry that Tsurugi girl like their parents had been planning since diapers. “You’re an artist, too, Jules. I trust your creative vision. Now. Which shirt?”

Juleka smiled to hide the flash of pain. It had also been years since anyone had called her _Jules_. Not since…

She shook her head to clear it of the darker thoughts. Marinette was still watching her expectantly. It didn’t do to dwell on the past. Luka, Rose, and Ivan had been dead almost ten years now, anyway.

“Fall line. Go with the bronze – makes his eyes pop,” Juleka said. Marinette nodded and took the shirt to Adrien. The rest of the shoot went off without a hitch, until finally she was packing up her camera as the rest of the crew cleared out. Marinette was busy talking to Alya Césaire by the door. Juleka still couldn’t believe Alya’s friendship with Marinette got the ‘reporter’ inside: she was one of the leading gossip columnists in Paris. Gabriel Agreste _hated_ her.

“Jules!” Marinette called, waving her over. She grinned, her arm looped around Alya’s. “We were going to get some drinks. Wanna join?”

Juleka forced a hopefully convincing smile on her face and shook her head.

“Nah, I’m too old for that,” she laughed. “I’ll only slow you down. You girls have fun.”

It was a shame Marinette wasn’t a few years older and Luka wasn’t a few years less dead, she thought as the girls left. They probably would’ve really hit it off.


	10. Bound & Gagged (Lila)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lila Rossi wasn't scared. She'd been through worse.
> 
> ...well, she'd said she had, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Bound & Gagged  
> Character/Pairing: Lila Rossi  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: Soooo…this is kinda vague-ish. Abduction. Murder/sexual assault implied but not actually done. This can either be a general, post-lycée, in-canon “what if” for Lila oooor how Lila died and became a reaper in the DLM AU. It’s pretty open-ended that way. (I am fighting – and failing – the inevitable fate that is all these prompts turning into the DLM AU. Skye, what have you done. xD)
> 
> (Or: This is DEFINITELY how Lila died in the DLM AU, but it's vague enough that it could apply to regular canon.)

Lila Rossi was not scared.

“Fuentes! What the _fuck_ did you do now?!”

She was a capable young woman. She could get herself out of _any_ situation.

“What you told me to, Boss! I got the girl!”

She was _not_ scared.

“Girl? _Girl?_ Dumbass, the Ambassador has twin SONS.”

…even if she had been abducted on her way home. Even if she was currently bound and gagged in the back of some dark room in an undisclosed location with a couple of burly men arguing about what should be done with her.

“But, Boss, she said she was the Ambassador’s kid!”

She had gotten herself out of worse situations…well, ok, technically she’d never been in a worse situation, but she had claimed to be, and Lila Rossi was nothing if not an artist with words. As soon as they removed her gag, she’d get herself out of this mess just fine.

“She told you that, Fuentes?”

“…well, no, she was telling her friends –”

“Her friends?”

“The group she was with at the club!”

“Yeah, because people never lie to impress their friends or strangers at a club. Damn it, Fuentes!”

She just had to tough it out. Surely that couldn’t be too hard, right? She’d been through worse.

“But she said –”

“I don’t give two shits what she said! Did it even occur to you the Ambassador’s kids – her _sons_ , who are in _lycée –_ aren’t even old enough to be in a club?”

“She said her name was Rossi! And that her mother worked at the Embassy!”

…neither of which had been a lie, Lila thought bitterly. She _was_ a Rossi, and her mother _did_ work at the Embassy.

“Because every asshole with a foreign name is an ambassador’s kid, _Fuentes?_ ”

“That’s not what I meant!”

…she just never disclosed the fact that her mother was the secretary sleeping with the Italian Ambassador. Politics. And claiming to be the _Ambassador_ ’s daughter instead of just the secretary homewrecker’s usually got her better connections.

“Well, great. This was supposed to be clean-cut. The fuck am I supposed to do with this bitch, anyway? If her mom really does work at the Embassy, someone’s gonna miss her.”

“I don’t know! I’m just the muscle – I’m not the brains!”

“ _Clearly._ ”

“Why don’t we…I don’t know…I _did_ pick her up at a pretty seedy joint. Rough her up a bit, have some fun? Ditch her body in a gutter near the club?”

Lila Rossi was _not_ scared.

“…keep talking. She is a pretty little thing. Could probably put that mouth to some good use.”

“Yes, yes! See? I didn’t fuck it up _that_ bad. We… _you_ can still benefit from this!”

“No, you still fucked up, and you still owe me big. This’s gonna set us back a bit. You better hope this doesn’t up security, Fuentes.”

She heard the doorknob rattling. The flick of a pocket knife opening.

“Where’d you pick this bitch up, again?”

Lila Rossi wasn’t scared.

She was fucking _terrified_.


	11. Reopening an Old Wound (Lukanette; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xavier's final reap recognizes Luka, even though there's no practical reason why she should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Reopening an Old Wound  
> Character/Pairing: Luka Couffaine, XY Roth, Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: Continuing the DLM AU because the plunnies won’t leave me be. Set immediately after Ch9; Mari and Alya getting drinks. There was a line about Alya ditching Mari to dance with the DJ that got cut for length. (…after the Loops and CSS are done I swear I’m coming back to this and making a cohesive fic.)

By now, Luka should’ve been used to getting fucked up the ass by life, and not in the fun way. It typically came with the territory when you died young and were told, “Hey, sorry, no _rest in peace_ for you! You’ve gotta be a Grim Reaper!” So maybe it was Death doing the fucking, in the end, but either way Luka _should_ have been used to the feeling of being totally, thoroughly, 100% _boned_.

This was…well, it wasn’t really new. It was par for the course, really. Just another reap. Mendeleiev had sent him with Xavier – ugh, sorry, _XY_ – to make sure he didn’t fuck it up again. Xavier had been on a particularly brilliant string of fuck-ups lately, which had led to Luka spending more time with the obnoxious little shit than he’d ever wanted to. Morning breakfast meet-ups to get their daily reaps were bad enough.

So he’d had to join Xavier at this bar, which of course they’d arrived at early (because it was a bar), and watch as Xavier wasted half an hour of unreciprocated flirting (sexual harassment, Luka was pretty sure it was called sexual harassment) before Xavier had realized the girl was his reap. So Luka had sat there, nursing a rum and coke, while Xavier had groped her (in an effort to pop her soul, of course) and, finally having enough, she had clocked him in the jaw. Luka tossed back the rest of his drink, bid her a good evening, and grabbed Xavier’s collar to drag him from the bar.

He wasn’t sure how she had died or what had happened after they left, but they were waiting outside for her soul when five minutes later the screaming started. A dazzling display of blue-green lights appeared to their side, and Luka watched in dazed horror as Xavier walked off into them. His stomach hadn’t quite settled by his feet when the dark-haired girl Xavier had been flirting with stumbled towards him, a dazed expression on her pale face.

…shit.

“Lu…Luka?” she squeaked. His eyebrows soared, the cigarette he’d been smoking dropping from his lips. Did he…did he know her? No fucking way. She was way too young. “Oh my God. You’re…you’re Luka Couffaine. I’m dead, aren’t I? Oh my God. I’m dead.”

Well. The head wound she was sporting should’ve told her that, but as the only reason he was aware of it was the grisly reflection in the window he wasn’t sure if she’d even noticed it yet.

“Er, yeah,” he said, stamping out his wasted cigarette. “How do you know that?”

She was too young to know him. Close to his age when he had died, but that had been so long ago now.

“You’re Juleka’s brother,” she said. She was shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. She knew Jules? How the fuck did _she_ know Jules? “The one in the band. The band that died in the stage accident.”

… _fucking shit._


	12. Caught in an Explosion (DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mendeleiev is still picking charred bits of dumbass out of her hair when the second bomb of the night is dropped on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Caught in an Explosion  
> Character/Pairing: Mendeleiev, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. More worldbuilding. (The “explosion” being Mendeleiev’s reaps in a literal sense & Marinette joining her team, in a metaphorical sense.) I…I have a shiny new AU and I can’t put it down.

Death isn’t perfect. Mistakes are made all the time. They’re called _hiccups_.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng being Xavier-Yves Roth’s last reap wasn’t a hiccup.

(The God of Creation, in her infinite wisdom, had seen how Luka Couffaine and Marinette Dupain-Cheng were in the other worlds. She thought it only fair they deserved the same chance in this one. Death merely rolled his green eyes and called her a sentimental old fool.)

The hiccup came when Philece Mendeleiev was scheduled for another reap at the exact same time Marinette was scheduled to die. As Head Reaper of her little group, she was _supposed_ to be there every time a new reaper turned up. To welcome them in, show them the ropes, tell them the rules, et cetera. That was her job. Her responsibility. However, because of a tiny clerical error somewhere along Death’s chain of afterlife pencil pushers, she was across town chasing down three dumbasses who thought liquor and gasoline were a perfect match. She wasn’t at the bar with Xavier and Marinette.

Luka was.

(“Clerical error, huh?” Death would ask later, side-eyeing his giggling companion. “So much for free will.”)

By the time the dumbasses had blown themselves sky high and Mendeleiev had ushered them into their lights (“Good fucking riddance!”), she was already in a sour mood. She wanted nothing more than to trudge home, jump in a hot shower, and spend the next two hours washing the smoke out of her hair. Instead, she was on her way to the twenty-four-hour café her group used as a meet-up to find out how badly Xavier had fucked up _this_ time. (She had texted Luka, cancelling their usual post-reap meet, but his response had been curt: _Get the fuck over here. Now._ ) She was still plucking bits of charred flesh out of her hair when she reached the café, grumbling the entire time. A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the door before she could open it, and she turned startled, furious eyes on…Fred? What the fuck was _Fred_ doing here?

Fred Haprèle raised a finger to his lips, shushing her as he nodded towards the front window of the café. Mendeleiev’s eyebrows rose as she looked inside.

Luka was sitting at their usual booth, a cup of coffee in hand. There was a girl sitting across from him – a dead girl, judging from the truly spectacular head wound splitting open the back of her scalp. Her back was to them, so they couldn’t see her face, but from the slouched posture Mendeleiev assumed she wasn’t the happiest dead girl on the planet. Before she could make any more observations, Luka’s eyes found hers through the glass. The hand resting on the back of the booth tightened into a fist, and he murmured something behind his coffee before putting the mug on the table. He stood and made his way to the door, pausing to lay a comforting hand on the dead girl’s shoulder.

Well, that was new.


	13. Slowly Running Out of Air (Bustier; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C. Bustier was a beloved kindergarten teacher with so much to live for when the cancer struck. Not that her reaper actually cared. She was still going to die in two, three minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Slowly Running Out of Air  
> Character/Pairing: Caline Bustier  
> Rating: K / G / All Ages  
> Notes: More DLM AU worldbuilding. Bustier isn’t going to be in Mendeleiev’s group, but I was considering it for a hot second to give Mendeleiev a comedic foil/canon adult reaper. Instead, she’s just going to be a fellow reaper who works in Malignant Neoplasms (instead of External Influence), specifically reaping cancer kids. She’s still super chipper & Mendeleiev finds her annoying as hell.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the cold hospital room, or at least it was the loudest. Louder than the rattling breaths of the woman in the bed. Certainly louder than the gentle whirring of the machines keeping her alive or the soft murmur of voices from the ward outside.

Cool eyes looked over her chart, ignoring the finer details of her case for the more practical aspects like her name. _Caline Bustier_. While the post-it had only said _C. Bustier_ , she was the only Bustier dying on this ward. It was probably safe to assume she was the intended reap.

It was sad, really. It looked like she was quite loved. Flowers lined the windowsill. There was a bouquet of balloons tied to the chair in the corner. Hand-drawn cards in rough crayon were scattered along the bedside table and among the flowers. If the woman didn’t look minutes (three and counting) away from death, she’d probably look right at home among the tokens of affection. As it was, her skin was pale and gaunt. The white sheets and hospital gown made her look paler. Her red hair was faded and lank, knotted over her pillow. Like whoever had been taking care of her knew her time was drawing to a close and no longer saw the point.

Hopefully, death would treat her better. One of the nurses in the hall had said she was a kindergarten teacher. Loved kids – all people, really. Hopefully her lights would be her old classroom, and she’d get to spend her eternity doing what she’d loved best. That same nurse had said she’d been fighting this disease long enough. She deserved a break after all this. They always did.

It had started as a simple case of breast cancer, but it had quickly metastasized until her entire body was riddled with it. The treatments had worked at first, but the cancer had regrouped and come back stronger. Such a shame. She was so young. Unmarried, but such a lovely woman. Dedicated to her job. She still had so much to live for.

Knowing all this didn’t change things one way or another. She would still die in another minute or two, but the cool hand brushed along her arm would insure she didn’t feel any of it. That was one kindness that could be afforded her, at least. Besides, this was Malignant Neoplasms, not Long-Term Care. MN Reapers didn’t get close to their reaps. They didn’t need to know the backstory, but nurses tended to be chatty. Especially for the young ones with _so much to live for_.

The door closed quietly, and she was left alone in the tiny room that had been her home for two weeks now. The steady beeping of the heart monitor was slower. The rise and fall of her chest shakier. Her breathing shallower.

The soul that had been Caline Bustier opened her eyes as a long, single beep rang out.


	14. Angry Mob (DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angry mob has formed protesting the Mayor's new Space Dumpster initiative, which means all hands on deck for a group reap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Angry Mob  
> Character/Pairing: Fred Haprèle, Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Mendeleiev, Théo Barbot; Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Théo Barbot/Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. Skipping ahead a bit. When Marinette joins, I’m thinking Mendeleiev’s group consists of Mendeleiev (head reaper), Fred Haprèle (Mylène’s dad), Théo Barbot (Copycat), Luka, and Marinette. I’m playing around with Théo a bit: I can’t decide if I want him honestly liking/flirting with Marinette (a la Copycat/Ladybug crush) or if he notices the Mutual Lukanette Pining & flirts with her to make Luka jealous/act. Anyway, this was meant to be a group reap, but I was kinda trying to do too much for the self-imposed word limit. Which…I’m pretty sure went out the window, anyway. xD

Multiple deaths usually meant group reaps. Group reaps were like field trips. Mendeleiev fucking hated field trips. They reminded her of when she was alive and shepherding a rowdy group of teenagers through the Louvre (her chaperoning was _stupid_ : she was a fucking _science_ teacher, not an _artist_ ).

This one wasn’t turning out _too_ bad, though. Now that Xavier was gone. Now that Lila had been gone for a while. Théo could still be a loose cannon, but for the first time in about thirty years her merry group of reapers was…peaceful.

One glance at the little smile on Luka’s face, though – one little giggle from their newest departed – and Mendeleiev had to wonder how long that peace could last.

(Relationships made things…sticky. She didn’t like sticky. Still. Luka was a big boy and far more capable than most. She trusted him to keep his shit together. She still wasn’t too sure on Marinette, though.)

Around them, the crowd was getting louder. Some tech behind the scenes bumped Mayor Bourgeois’s mic, and after a moment of staticy feedback his voice boomed even louder. Which just made the mob louder. Mendeleiev rolled her eyes and pulled out a cigarette. One of the environmentalists by her side narrowed his eyes at the rising smoke, but he turned away in a huff when she flipped him off. Her cigarettes weren’t going to kill the planet. The Mayor’s asinine plan to shoot garbage into space, however…

On the other side of the mob, Marinette had just popped her last soul of the day. She made her way back over to Luka’s side, hopping up onto the low wall he was leaning against. He glanced up at her with a slight smile before returning his attention to the crowd. There was still one more soul to find before 3:36.

“I went to school with his daughter, y’know,” she said, flicking a pebble off the wall. He hummed, his eyebrows lifting. In front of them, Théo was flirting with a short protestor whose shorter hair was covered with a pink scarf. She looked familiar, but Luka couldn’t quite place her. “Total bitch. Wonder what she’s up to these days…”

“Probably sunbathing on the roof, as far away from this mess as she can get,” Luka said. Théo was knocked back into a taller man, and as he apologized he brushed his hand against the man’s arm, popping his soul. He apologized to the girl and turned back towards them, sending Marinette a wink before he disappeared into the crowd. With the girl turned towards them, watching Théo disappear, Luka realized it was Ivan’s old girlfriend. She had cut her hair.

…he really hoped Fred hadn’t seen her.

“Sounds about right,” Marinette giggled, and the sound made him relax against the wall. The shit was going to hit the fan any minute now, but he’d take this. He liked the quiet moments with her. “Chloé was always –”

“All right, kids!” Théo cut in, hopping onto the wall beside Marinette and shoving Luka out of his way in the process. Luka scowled up at him, but if he noticed he ignored him. “What d’ya think’s gonna happen? I call shooter. Pissed off environmentalist loses it, shoots the mayor, then people get trampled in their rush to escape.”

“Did anyone even get the mayor? I didn’t see anyone near M. Bourgeois,” Marinette said. Théo reached up and ruffled her hair, making her roll her eyes. Luka’s frown deepened. He didn’t like how… _familiar_ Théo was with Marinette. Even if Théo was like that with everyone.

“Didn’t say he’d die, pet,” he whispered with a wink. Luka rolled his eyes and looked back to the stage – just in time to see the space dumpster prototype blow, sending little bullets of shrapnel straight into the mob of protestors. Those not immediately down began screaming, and – much as Théo had called it – trampled the rest. “Angry mob. People _always_ die in the rush to get out. You’re still new at this, Mari. You’ll learn eventually.”

Souls started walking towards them. Mendeleiev and Fred came up from the side, both looking weary.

“All right, kids. Break’s over.”

At least Mylène made it out.


	15. Taking You with Me (Agrestes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Emilie Agreste lost her family, she lost her mind. At least that's what Nathalie thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Taking You with Me  
> Character/Pairing: GO  
> Rating: K / G / All Ages  
> Notes: WHAT IT’S NOT PART OF THE DLM AU?! …hi I also Really Really Really love the idea of Evil Mastermind Emilie Agreste. :D (This was going to be an XY prompt, in a vengeful “I’M GOING DOWN YOU’RE GOING DOWN!” sense, but I really can’t stand the little shit. So somehow this happened, in a vaguer, “Everyone is evil what is wrong with that woman” sense.)

Gabriel Agreste had always been the face of the company. He was the designer – the one with the ideas – but Emilie had been the Graham de Vanily. She had been the one with the money. The family name. The brains for business.

But Gabriel had been the public figure. Gabriel was the one the fashion world would remember – would miss – if he went missing.

“…you’re insane,” Nathalie whispered, her eyes widening in terror as Emilie explained her plan.

Nathalie had been young once. Eager, optimistic, bright-eyed and full of the future…landing her position as an executive assistant at _Gabriel_ had been her big break. She had known from her first day – from before, when Emilie had called her to tell her she had gotten the job – that it would change her life.

“Perhaps,” Emilie said, her voice as soft as the feathers she had hidden within her pendant. She turned her gaze back on Nathalie, and the young assistant remembered when those green eyes used to be warm, like the soft grass on a hot summer’s day. Now they were the cool dark of turning leaves in autumn. Her pale hand brushed along the cheek of the…the…

…Emilie had refused to call them _monsters_ , even though it had been in the word the tiny, birdlike god had used. They were her creations. Her _family_ , she had insisted with all the macabre devotion of a young Frankenstein, but Nathalie had known Gabriel. Had watched Adrien grow since he was a babe. Neither had ever been so pale, and their eyes had never been so dead.

“Duusu’s power is not perfect, Nathalie,” Emilie continued, as if Nathalie had never stopped listening. “He is… _limited_ , even more so thanks to his injuries. But he has told me of others of his kind. A bug who can Create life.”

“…ma’am?” Nathalie asked. Her mouth was dry, her throat thick as cotton. Emilie approached her, her hand reaching up to brush against the tiny diamond in Nathalie’s ear.

“I am too weak, my precious Nathalie,” Emilie said. “I cannot protect Gabriel and Adrien anymore. You must. You and…”

Her eyes slid over to the bodyguard, who had been standing silently by the door, his steely eyes staring blankly ahead. The gorilla-like monstrosity had been Emilie’s first attempt at these… _sentimonsters_. She would need someone strong and capable to protect her family, she had insisted. But he was simple, flawed…he could not talk as the imitations of Gabriel and Adrien did. Still, he was loyal. Fiercely protective. He would serve his purpose.

“I was too foolish, Nathalie,” Emilie sighed. “Too…ambitious. Perhaps it’s something I picked up from Gabriel. He must find the other Miraculous stones. You must help him. And when you do…”

Emilie turned her head, and Nathalie followed her gaze to see…there was another cryogenic pod, hidden in a panel on the back wall. A young woman with black hair, the bangs dyed red, slept inside.

“Fix Duusu’s stone,” Emilie ordered. The creation that went by Nathalie turned blank eyes back to her master…her _mother_. “Heal me. Protect them. Love them as I do. Find the Ladybug and Cat gems. A sacrifice will be required, my dearest friend…but we will bring Gabriel and Adrien back. Our family will be whole again.”

And Nathalie understood.

She had, after all, been a real person.

Once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Oprah voice* YOU GET A SENTIMONSTER, YOU GET A SENTIMONSTER - EVERY. PERSON. IN. THAT. HOUSE. IS. A. SENTIMONSTER!!!!!!!!
> 
> (...y'all thought Senti!Gabe & Senti!Adrien were bad enough, huh? Don't give me sandboxes I make beaches.)


	16. Concussion (Juleka; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While out on a reap, Luka and Marinette stumble across Juleka - who was just mugged and left for dead in the street. Luka...doesn't handle it well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Concussion  
> Character/Pairing: Luka Couffaine, Juleka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. What’s a word limit again? xD When the AU gets properly written, I want there to be a whole thing where – after Mari joins the group – Luka has to confront Juleka again. I’m still working out the kinks, but it’s following that whole “You can’t visit your family bc they have to move on. You have to move on. That’s not your life anymore.” There’s gonna be a bit with Luka helping Mari learn that (she’s trying to visit her parents’ bakery), and then this where she has to remind him of it, too.

“Luka, you can’t do this.”

Marinette meant well, but she was new. Young. She had no idea what the fuck she was talking about. He was older, smarter, and better acclimated to this whole death thing. That made it easier to ignore her as he knelt by the groaning woman.

“Lu… _Louis!_ ” Marinette hissed, glancing at the semi-conscious woman on the ground.

“Hey, hey,” Luka said softly, ignoring her. “Stay with us. They got you pretty good.”

Hazel eyes blinked open, and Luka let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It was ok. Juleka was alive. (The post-it hadn’t read _J. Couffaine_ , anyway.) She squinted at him, her eyes glazed and unfocused. He hadn’t been dead that long, in the grand scheme of things. He was confident she wouldn’t recognize him. She groaned, her eyes closing again and her head tipping back against the brick wall. He reached up to brush her hair out of her face, but Marinette roughly grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

“What the fuck, Marinette?!” he snapped, rounding on her. She looked scared. Some part of him thought he should be concerned about that, too.

“Luka, think about what you’re doing,” she hissed, her grip on his arms so tight her knuckles were blanching. “You said…you and Mendeleiev _both_ said we can’t go back. We have to move on. _They_ have to move on. It’s why you wouldn’t let me go to my parents’ bakery. You can’t do this.”

“My sister just got fucking mugged, Marinette,” he hissed, jerking away from her. “I don’t give two shits about what you think I _can’t_ do. I’m not going to leave her here to fucking die!”

“She won’t!” Marinette said. “She…her name wasn’t on the post-it! If she was going to die, we’d have her name, right?”

“So I’m supposed to leave her here? That asshole slammed her head into the wall! She –” he started, but she clamped a hand over his mouth to stop him. He almost bit her to break loose, but a moment later she was letting go of him and stepping towards Juleka. She reached into her pocket, pulling out Juleka’s phone.

“Please be the same, please be the same…” Marinette muttered as she pulled up the lock screen. A moment later, she was opening the phone and calling 112. Luka knelt beside her, murmuring softly to Juleka as he brushed her hair back. “Yes, I need to report a mugging. No, not me. The…the assailants ran off, but there’s a woman here. She’s not conscious – I think she has a concussion.”

Luka barely listened as she gave them their location and agreed to wait for emergency services to show up. He was halfway through picking Juleka up when Marinette disconnected the call and grabbed his arm.

“What are you doing?!” she hissed.

“I’m taking her home – what the fuck does it look like?” he snapped.

“Help is on the way. We have to get out of here,” Marinette said, squeezing his arm.

“The hell we do – I’m not fucking leaving her!” he said. Marinette stood and grabbed him, using all her strength – which was impressive, considering her small size – to pull him back. Juleka groaned as her head landed against the wall again, and he was pretty sure he called Marinette something he’d regret later. Right then, he didn’t care.

“Come on! You know you can’t do this – you know you’ll hate yourself later! You have to let her go, Luka!” Marinette pleaded, but he wasn’t listening.

“She’s my fucking sister, Marinette!” he bit.

“And she was my friend!” Marinette snapped. “Was! But she can’t be anymore – you’re the one who told me that, you asshole! _You_ did! So why is it different for you and not me?!”

…she was crying. When did she start crying? When had…shit. _He_ was crying. He pulled Marinette towards him, crumbling around her as he wrapped her in a hug. She was right. He knew she was right. It wasn’t different, and he couldn’t do this. But he couldn’t just leave Jules in the street, either. He couldn’t…Marinette clung to him, her hands fisting against his back as she pressed her hot face to his chest. He could hear himself shushing her, soothing comforts leaving him amid a string of apologies. He heard a siren in the distance, and Marinette froze against him. He looked back at Juleka, lying so still on the sidewalk. She almost looked dead.

…but she wasn’t. Hopefully not for a long time yet.

But he was.

And, damn it all, Marinette was right.

He couldn’t fucking do this.

It wasn’t fair.

He was learning Death never was.


	17. Accidentally Hurt by Friend (Officer Raincomprix)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette leaves Paris at Adrien's insistence that Mr. Bug can handle things in her absence. She needs a break. When she runs into Luka at a Scottish pub, she learns Mr. Bug maybe hasn't handled things as well as he claimed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Accidentally Hurt by Friend  
> Character/Pairing: Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Luka Couffaine  
> Rating: K Plus / PG / Most Ages  
> Notes: Also NOT part of the DLM AU. This was one of the first ones written, before the AU took over. xD I made one comment about Adrien needing a Gap Year, and Fxl and Bloody started spitballing, and now here we are. Kiiinda salty towards Adrien/Mr. Bug? I mean…it’s a plausible observation, based on his canon character, but…y’know. Enough people have bitched about my observations. So warning?

The pub was small, and cold, and damp, but Marinette had found most of the places around Stornoway – around the Hebrides in general, actually – were like that. At least during her time there. But Luka had always made Stornoway sound so warm, and vibrant, and when her travels happened to take her through the Couffaine homelands she had known she’d have to spend at least a few days in the town his family once called home. It would have been better spending that time there with him, with her own personal tour guide, but that hadn’t been the point of her trip anyway.

She was supposed to get _away_ from Paris. To recoup. To recover a bit of her sanity and _relax_ – something she had been unable to do with Hawkmoth’s attacks becoming more erratic. But Chat had assured her Mr. Bug could handle things, and Ladybug needed a break.

“Go travel,” he had told her. “I’ve got this.”

From what Luka had spent the past hour telling her, Mr. Bug very much did _not_ ‘have this’.

“It’s a mess, Mari,” Luka sighed, pushing his hands into his hair and knotting his fingers through the curls. She wondered when the last time he had cut it was – it was longer than she had ever seen it. “ _He’s_ a mess. He’s no Ladybug, that’s for sure.”

“Of course you’d say that,” she muttered. He glanced up at her, a smile quirking his lips. “He said he could handle it.”

“Mari,” he said, “when has he _ever_ handled it?”

It was mean, but he wasn’t exactly wrong.

“He only sees big-picture,” Luka continued, pushing back from the table to lean against the wall. He wrapped his hand around his pint, raised it, and put it back without drinking. “He doesn’t have Ladybug’s eye for detail. The Miracle Cure doesn’t work the same. It started small enough. Maybe old buildings that were already crumbling were a little worse for wear. But then it started getting bigger. Officer Roger’s cruiser stayed in the Seine. That half of the building was still missing. August’s ma was still stone.”

“What?” she gasped. She remembered seeing the redhead and her son at the train station her last day in Paris. She had been arguing with the toddler, and Marinette had been certain Mr. Bug’s first mission would involve an akumatized August.

“People are dying, Marinette,” Luka said. He reached for his pint again. He actually drank it this time. “Ma loaded us up and set sail when she fished Officer Roger’s body out of the river.”

Marinette reached for his pint and downed the rest of it. She gave him a bittersweet smile.

“Well, at least the Captain doesn’t have to worry about tickets anymore,” she quipped. He laughed, shaking his head.

“That’s not funny,” he said. She sighed, nodding.

“It’s not,” she agreed soberly. She stood, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently. “Come on. I have a feeling my trip just ended early.”


	18. Fainting (Lukanette; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette hadn't really experienced a lot of death before her own. Her first (observed) reap is maybe a bit more than she can handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Fainting  
> Character/Pairing: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. Marinette’s first reap…well, her first observed reap. It doesn’t go so well.

Marinette wasn’t good with death. She never had been.

Well…maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was more she just wasn’t _familiar_ with it.

When she was a little girl, she had wanted a hamster more than anything. Her parents had insisted she was too young, and with the family business a pet wouldn’t be a good idea. What if it got loose? What if the health inspector caught it downstairs and forced them to shut down? What if her Nona didn’t care what her parents thought and brought her one home anyway?

The hamster had lived maybe a week before Marinette had found it dead in its cage. She had screamed the rest of the night, and Marinette had never wanted another pet again.

Her parents tried to tell her that death was natural. A normal part of life. To a five-year-old Marinette who couldn’t understand why her hamster wouldn’t play with her anymore, it didn’t seem natural at all.

Until she was sixteen, that had really been her only exposure to death. Her grandfather was an old, cantankerous grump that hadn’t come into her life until she was fourteen, and she had been fortunate enough (…she guessed) to have two years with him before he’d passed, as well. Even then, there hadn’t been anything _natural_ about Roland’s body in the casket. He looked grumpy as ever, if…pastier. Still, he had passed peacefully in his sleep, like old people were supposed to. Really, any exposure Marinette had had to grislier deaths had been limited to television shows and movies.

Until her own.

And even then, she hadn’t really felt the blow to her head that had ended her life. She hadn’t even really seen the wound, in the short time she’d been sporting it, because it had been on the back of her head. Unfortunately, the nature of her death also meant she had landed herself in the _External Influence_ division of death. Which meant she was set to spend the rest of her unlife around some of the grisliest, deathier deaths you could imagine.

Like her first one.

Well.

It wasn’t _her_ first death. Luka would be the one doing the reaping. She was just…how had Mendeleiev put it? _Clocking observation hours_.

“So we…what? Shove them into traffic?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably. The clothes she was wearing were lumpy and formless and, as a designer, she hated them. But she had to wear _something_ , and they were the smallest clothes Luka had.

“…did Xavier shove _you_ into traffic?” Luka asked, his eyebrows lifting in amusement. She felt her face warm – which was _weird_ , because how could she blush if she was dead? – and looked away.

“No,” she huffed. “He grabbed my ass and disappeared. Then…y’know.”

“It’s like I told you: we don’t do the… _y’know_ ,” he said, quirking his eyebrows as he bent his head to light a cigarette. She tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it when he grinned at her. It was the first time she’d seen him smile like that. She couldn’t help but think he had a nice smile. “I mean, plenty of us… _y’know_. Just not… _y’know._ ”

“Stoooop,” she laughed, lightly shoving his shoulder. It felt weird, joking with someone again. Flirting with someone again – and was this flirting? Was she flirting? …was he? She’d only been dead – _undead_ – a week or so. She had thought she’d never be able to joke, flirt, or _anything_ ever again. That was how death was supposed to work, anyway, but she supposed this wasn’t her death after all. This was her _undeath_. “You’re terrible. You’re going to make me think you _do_ wanna... _y’know_.”

“Oh, I definitely do,” he said, his voice dropping low as he leaned in. She froze when she felt his breath by her ear, smelled the smoke curling off his breath. His fingers wrapped around her shoulder, and she watched as he pointed to a loud, obnoxious blonde woman bossing around a woman with cropped red hair. “I’d love to _y’know_ that one right into oncoming traffic.”

She collapsed against him, clapping her hands over her burning face as she shook with laughter. She could feel his chuckle – or maybe that was just her shaking shaking him – before he squeezed her shoulder and moved away.

“Nah, we don’t cause anything,” he said, leaning back against the building they’d been waiting by. “We just take care of the souls. Facilitate things. You go wherever the post-it tells you, find your person, pop their soul, show them their lights, and that’s it.”

“How do you know who you’re looking for?” she asked once she had regained her composure. She looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. His eyes were focused on the intersection, watching the people come and go.

“Sometimes it’s easy,” he said after a moment. “You overhear a name. Or you just act like you’re looking for someone and ask around. Sometimes you just…hang back. Observe. Look for high risk factors.”

A sudden squealing of tires brought their attention to a truck that had slammed on its brakes in the center of the intersection and crashed into another car. The collision had loosened the pipes on top of the truck, sending them flying forward through the window of the car – and, they were too late to see, through the head of the driver.

“…shit,” Luka cursed, looking for an opening as people rushed to help the driver. “And sometimes, no matter what you do, you’re too late and have to pop the soul post-mortem.”

“Oh my G…”

Luka was two steps towards the crash when he heard the thump. His eyebrows soared as he turned back to find Marinette had fainted.

“…shit.”


	19. Trying to Wake Them Up (M. Pigeon; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's supposed to be working, not...oogling Luka eat a croissant like hormone-riddled teenager.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Trying to Wake Them Up  
> Character/Pairing: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Luka Couffaine, Xavier Ramier  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. I just realized why XY is such a little shit: he shares the same name as M. Pigeon. That would make anyone temperamental. (This is 90% Horny Marinette and 10% Pain.) Also, just a head’s up: there are 25 prompts & 31 days in May. I may skip a day or two, as my copy of Songbirds & Snakes just got here and I need to rip the bandaid off.

“…ok, you were right,” Luka said, polishing off the last of his croissant. Marinette found herself staring at him, momentarily distracted as he licked the buttery crumbs off his fingers and made a sound that she’d almost dare to call indecent. He pulled his thumb from his mouth with a wet _pop_ , and she realized it was a good thing she was undead. Forgetting how to breath wasn’t as consequential when you didn’t need air to begin with. He looked up at her, catching her staring, and she swallowed thickly as a slow smile curled the lips she’d maybe been spending a bit too much time looking at lately.

…God, what was wrong with her?

This was Luka.

He was…a nice guy, if a little rough around the edges. A coworker. A friend. The dead brother of an old friend. She should not be staring at his mouth, wondering how it would feel pressed against her own, like she was some…hormonal teenager.

“…nette?”

She jumped, blinking owlishly at him.

“Huh?” she asked. He chuckled, and she froze as he reached forward and brushed his thumb along the corner of her mouth. She was struck by the sudden urge to suck that thumb into her mouth. Her face warmed under his stare, and she firmly told the voice in her head – the one that sounded suspiciously like Alya, who was shouting at her to _jump that ass_ – to fuck off.

“You ok?” he chuckled, and she swallowed again before nodding, but whatever she was going to answer was lost as he brought his thumb back to his mouth and sucked on it. Oh, that was _so not fair…_ “I was just saying. You were right: best croissants in Paris. I can’t believe I’ve never stopped there before.”

…right. They’d been talking about her parents. Because she’d been scheduled for a reap in the park across the street from the bakery, and they’d gotten to talking, and while she waited for _X. Ramier_ to make his appearance Luka had gone over to the T&S Boulangerie and returned with a bag of goodies. Because she couldn’t go in there anymore, and she’d been missing her parents’ treats, and he’d thought…

“…yeah,” she laughed, snatching the croissant he’d just pulled from the bag out of his hand and taking a bite. He’d already had two, anyway. Across the park, a man in a gray suit and hat appeared to be sleeping on a bench, a bag of bread crumbs in his hand as pigeons pecked the ground at his feet. A little girl was cooing over the birds, talking to the unresponsive man about how pretty his friends were. Marinette had known the man: he was a regular at the bakery, stopping in every morning for a fresh croissant and a bag of crumbled leftovers her Papa kept specifically for his birds. “I told you. Best in Paris.”

She smiled so she wouldn’t start crying again. She smiled so she wouldn’t think about M. Ramier, either the corpse the little girl was shaking or the soul that was now sitting next to her. She smiled so Luka would think she was fine, that she was adjusting. She smiled because she wasn’t.

“Monsieur?” the little girl asked, shaking the knee of X. Ramier’s corpse. The bag of stale croissant crumbs dropped from his hand, and the pigeons swarmed.

“Oh, they’re going to eat too much – they’ll bloat!” Ramier’s soul worried beside her, and her smile was a bit more genuine as Luka snorted. Across the park, the little girl started screaming.


	20. Coughing Up Blood (Lukanette; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luka and Marinette get caught up in a bit of a heated moment, which is quickly cooled. And reheated. And...y'know what? A lot of time/temperature abuse happens here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Coughing Up Blood  
> Character/Pairing: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Luka Couffaine  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: DLM AU. Remember the episode near the beginning where George gets impaled by Der Waffle Haus sign & is coughing up bolts the next day? I think about those little moments a lot. (What even is this one. It almost became a bedtime story, that’s what. There was a joke, then Fxl was like “you can’t make coughing up blood sexy”, and I went “HOLD MY BEER”. xD) There’s quite a bit of time between Mari’s death and this, where a LOT happens between them, but that’s more to get fleshed out in the actual AU. That will get written. Eventually.

It’s weird, how alive being dead could make you feel.

She felt it in every pass of his hands along her sides. She felt it in every swipe of his tongue along her own. She felt it in every rush of thrilled pleasure when she drew a strangled noise from his mouth. She really felt it when he hauled her onto his lap, pulling her down even as he rocked up into her.

She broke away from him with a gasp, her head falling back as he ground her against him. His mouth slid along her jaw and down her neck, nipping and sucking as he went. She could feel him beneath her, growing harder with each fevered rock of his hips.

She’d been feeling so alive for a while now – longer than she could be certain of, in that strange way the days seemed to pass when keeping track of them no longer seemed to matter – and it was all because of the undead man beneath her. She wasn’t quite sure when they had crossed that line from coworkers to friends to… _this_. Maybe they had always been rushing towards this point, from the moment Juleka had showed her the picture of her dead brother and said, with unfailing certainty, “He would have liked you, Marinette. I’m sure of that.” Maybe it had been in the little ways, like the first time she’d seen him smile or the first time she’d been so distracted by his laugh she’d walked into a parked car. Maybe it had been too much alcohol on the anniversary of his death, neither actually able to get drunk but doing their damnedest to try. Maybe it was the hesitant kiss she had pretended to forget, chickening out at the last moment and claiming the next day she’d been too drunk to really remember much of anything. Maybe it was the guarded way he’d looked at her since then, his casual touches becoming more hesitant at what he could only take as a subtle refusal.

Or maybe it was just this, the not-so-gentle acquiescence that yes, I like you, I want you, and for once I don’t give a fuck if I’m supposed to or not.

She squealed as he held her to him, rolling from the arm of the couch to pin her against the cushions. Her knees caught, dangling off the arm as he slid between them, and there was some awkward fumbling as he fell above her and her face pressed into his chest. One arm braced above his head, the other raking up her thigh and bunching her skirt around her hips, and they both laughed as she squirmed beneath him.

“You…didn’t think that one through all too well,” she chided, her voice muffled in his shirt.

“I did not,” he agreed, squeezing her thigh before he removed his hand to push himself up. He ducked his head and grinned at her, his face still flushed and his lips looking like she needed to be kissing them again. “Hi.”

“…hi,” she giggled, and his eyes followed her as she shimmied up the couch until they were better aligned. Her hands came up to rest on his hips, her fingers toying with his belt. “Better?”

“Mu…” he started to say, but his eyes widened and he was collapsing against her, his entire body shaking as he coughed. Her knees came up to brace his sides, her arms wrapping around him and clapping his back, and she murmured platitudes until the coughing spell passed. When it was over, he sagged against her, groaning.

“L-Luka?” she asked, rubbing a hand along his back. “Are you…are you ok? What the hell was that?”

“Sor…sorry,” he groaned. She heard a metal tinkling, and he groaned again as he pushed himself up and held up a…what even was that? Some kind of bloody, metal bracket with screws? And God, was that…was that skin dangling from the screws? Bits of _throat?_ “Got impaled during my reap last night. Thought I got all the pieces out, but…”

“…oh, ew,” she said, her face scrunching. He turned to her, grinning. “That’s…that’s a thing? That can happen? Oh, gross.”

“You’ve been lucky so far,” he said. He closed his fist around the bracket and pushed off of her, wincing as he rubbed his throat. “I need some water. Sorry, I…”

“No, nope, it’s good, I’m fine,” she said, and she didn’t miss the way his eyes followed her as she sat up and tugged her skirt back down. She crossed her legs, shifting uncomfortably as she looked…anywhere but at him, really. “God, that’s a buzzkill. You just coughed up a hardware store on my floor. That’s disgusting.”

“Your sympathy is much appreciated,” he mumbled with a roll of his eyes. She winced as he stood, and after a moment she followed him into the kitchen. She watched as he rinsed his mouth out before taking a long drink from the glass. He glanced at her as she leaned against the counter, shifting slightly. He was still drinking.

“It’s…it’s probably for the best, anyway,” she said, picking at a button on her shirt. She missed the way his eyes followed her hand, or how they flicked back up to her mouth when she started biting her lip and stayed there. “I-I mean…what were we thinking? We work together. We…we’re friends. We can’t be sleeping together. God, that’s such a fucked-up idea. And if it goes wrong? We’re good now. We don’t need that drama. Mendeleiev would kill us…or…well…ok, she can’t _kill_ us, but she’d certainly – mmf!”

She squeaked as he pushed her back into the counter, his mouth hot and hungry against hers as one hand pulled her hips flush against him and the other threaded their fingers together. Her arguments died on her tongue as he coaxed it into his mouth, and suddenly her mind was swimming again as her only coherent thoughts became _Luka_ and _more_ and _God, yes, like that…_

“I’ll stop if you want me to stop,” he said after another moment of very thorough kissing. His voice was rough, though whether that was from the desire or the hardware she wasn’t sure. “Even if you’re just grossed out by the injury and want to stop for now. Or if you really do think this is a bad idea and want to stop for good.”

“No,” she gasped, surprised at how needy her voice sounded. Like she was whining at him. He smirked and bent down to drop a kiss against her neck, and she sighed as she angled her head to give him better access. “Maybe. I don’t…God, I want you so much…I’ve never wanted anyone so much before. How is that possible? How…”

He cut her words off with another kiss, and when he pulled away the look in his eyes made whatever she had been about to say catch in her throat.

“I want you, too, Marinette,” he said softly. “More than want. You…God, I’m so bad at this. You make me feel alive again. Like…like all this fucked-up bullshit we go through every day is worth it. Like I was supposed to die in that stupid accident, because if I hadn’t I never would have met you. And meeting you is one of the best damn things that’s ever happened to me.”

“…I…same,” she sighed, her fingers curling along his jaw. He turned his head and kissed her palm, nuzzling his face against her hand. “I still can’t shake the thought that this is a bad idea, though.”

“You think too much, darning,” he sighed, kissing her hand again. “Just…stop thinking, for once, and feel. What do you feel? Right now?”

“…you,” she said after a moment, and he chuckled as she pulled him back to her mouth. “How much I want you. How much I might love you.”

“Then let me love you, please,” he breathed, and the way she let him kiss her was all the permission he needed.

…at least until he started coughing again, and ended up hacking up a few more screws into her kitchen sink.

“Ok,” she said, trying not to laugh as he groaned and leaned over the sink. She reached out and rubbed his back, patting lightly to avoid dislodging more hardware. “Um. Maybe later. Once this…passes. We can revisit this?”

“…I’m going to fucking kill Mendeleiev for giving me that reap,” he bit out, and she bit her lip to hide her smile.

“It’s fine. It’s good,” she said, wincing as he started coughing again. “It’s not like we don’t have time. We’ve got nothing but time, right?”

He glanced up at her when the next bought of coughing had passed, and despite everything…he smiled. She found herself smiling, too.

“Yeah,” he choked out, voice raw. “We’ve got time.”


	21. Choking (Lukanette; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette and Luka have a conversation about his smoking while waiting for a reap at a bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Choking  
> Character/Pairing: GO  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: *quietly slips this in here like it’s Tuesday and she hasn’t been completely abducted by Nook Inc* Look for a double (or triple – let’s be optimistic!) update today to catch me up. There’s four prompts after this and….oh. Four days to do ‘em in. Eh I might still go for another update later today.
> 
> Anyway, DLM AU. Don’t…don’t even ask. I have no fucking clue. xD (There’s willies and references to botched blowjobs in this one, but nothing, y’know…active.)

Marinette could feel her skin crawling as she followed Luka into the seedy joint in a seedier part of town that she _never_ would have visited during her living days. The place reeked of smoke – tobacco and otherwise – and cheap booze, and between the shouting, the pulse of the music pumping too loud through the speakers, and the smells assaulting her from every angle it was enough to make her head spin. Still, this was where their post-its had said their reaps would occur, so this was where they were. Luka didn’t seem much bothered by it, she couldn’t help but notice as she followed him to the bar, though she figured he was probably used to this kind of scene. Either this was the sort of scene he’d played (not frequented, because somehow she couldn’t picture Luka a patron of a dive like this) or he’d reaped enough poor bastards in joints like this post-death. Either way, he walked up to the bar like he owned the place, immediately catching the bartender’s attention and ordering their drinks with a familiarity and authority she had never possessed outside of a fashion house (and sometimes even then).

Alya had always been the one to approach the bar, before. She’d never really had the confidence to either catch the bartender’s attention or fend off the unwanted attention from other patrons, so that had been Alya’s job on any given Girl’s Night.

“Anything stick out?” Luka asked once the order was placed. He turned around, leaning back against the bar as he fished another cigarette out of his pocket. It shouldn’t have bothered her – nearly everyone in there was smoking, so what was one more in light of that? – but she still found her lip curling back in distaste.

“Why do you do that?” she asked before she could stop herself. He raised his eyebrows, turning to her with a confused expression, and suddenly the smoke was right in her face and making her cough. She covered her mouth and looked away, wincing before she turned back to him. “…sorry. That…sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“Why do I do what?” he asked, and she realized he honestly had no idea what she was talking about. The bartender tapped two glasses on the counter behind them, and Luka gave him a quick nod before looking back at her. She frowned, fidgeting uncomfortably before she gestured towards his cigarette.

“…smoke,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like you can be addicted, right? Or…oh my God. _Can_ we get addicted? Are there junkie reapers? Is that a thing?”

He blinked at her for a moment, and she half expected him to yell at her – or at least say something scathing and rude, much like he’d done to Théo on plenty of occasions already. Instead, she was surprised when he…laughed.

…she liked his laugh. It was nice.

“No, there aren’t junkie reapers,” he said. Her eyebrows furrowed as he absently reached behind him, snuffing out the cigarette in an ash tray and leaving it there. “Though I’ve heard about a reaper in the States that certainly tries. We all have our ways of coping with death, Marinette. I guess that one just kind of became mine? I don’t know. I never used to smoke. Does it…does it bother you?”

She fidgeted again, and she could feel her face warming under his stare. There was no judgment in his eyes, no reproach. Just…an idle curiosity. Like it bothered him if his smoking bothered her, but that idea was crazy, right? Why the hell should he care? Why should she?

“It’s…I mean, it’s none of my business, is it? I was…just…curious,” she finished, lamely. She looked out over the crowd, wondering who among them was _C. Ruth_. She chewed on her lip a moment, considering. “I mean…I never smoked. I dated a guy who smoked once. Well…one date. It wasn’t a very good one, and when he kissed me at the end of the night it tasted like ashes and regret.”

She was still watching the crowd, but in her mind she was back six or seven years, trying to say goodnight to a boy who wouldn’t take _no_ for an answer. She hadn’t wanted to go on that date in the first place, but Alya had insisted it would be good for her. That she _needed_ it. She’d had a miserable time, and at the end of the night he’d shoved her against the back wall of the bakery as he shoved his tongue down her throat. As humiliating as it was, she had been glad her father had heard the tussle, assumed it was the raccoons getting in the garbage again, and had come out with a broom to chase them off. She was still certain the only thing that had kept Tom Dupain from killing that boy was the tears she hadn’t been able to stop at his sudden appearance.

That had been her only date during her life. Her only kiss. She just…hadn’t been interested, after.

She jumped when Luka laid a hand on her shoulder, and there was something…gentle…about his expression when she looked back at him. He dipped his head towards her, smiling slightly.

“So…are you concerned about the smoking because of my health or because you don’t want me tasting like regret when you finally kiss me?” he asked, a somewhat teasing tone to his voice. Her eyes shot open, and she was fairly certain her face was on fire.

“I…I…that’s not…you…you’re already dead, dumbass! They won’t kill you anyway!” she huffed. She immediately knew she had said the wrong thing when a grin curled his lips. There was something…serpentine about that grin. Enticing. Something she wasn’t quite ready to place yet.

“…so you are planning on kissing me,” he said, nodding, and she choked a little. His smile was more sincere as he looked back at the crowd, seeming pleased with his conclusion. Assumption. Whatever. “Good to know. I think I’d like that.”

“You…I didn’t say…ugh!” she screeched, burying her face in her palms. He had tossed his head back, laughing openly as he leaned back on the bar, and she blindly reached out to swipe at him. Maybe she _had_ wondered what kissing him would be like, but he didn’t need to know that! Besides, it’s not like she’d ever act on it! She was…and he was…and it just wasn’t a good idea, and…

“Come on, Todd – the closet’s open!” a woman laughed as she passed in front of them, pulling a man along behind her.

“Oh, I’m coming, Claire Ruth,” the man slurred, stumbling after her. They stopped short in front of them, _Claire Ruth_ yanking who they could only assume was _Todd Hastings_ in for a sloppy kiss. Their conversation momentarily forgotten, Luka and Marinette exchanged a look before they reached out, brushing their hands along the arms of the snogging couple, who never even noticed them. A moment later they were crashing into a closet in the back, where Luka and Marinette were unfortunately just close enough to hear just about everything below the loud music. When the souls of the couple appeared beside them moments later, Claire gawked at the closet before slapping Todd – or attempting to, as her hand just vanished in a swirl of mist that passed through his equally misty arm.

“You just choked me on your cock, jackass!” she shouted, and Marinette – who was trying to avoid Luka’s questions by drinking the rum and coke he’d ordered her – promptly choked on her drink. Luka bit his lip and reached over, gently clapping her back.

“Yeah, well, who knocked the pool balls off the shelf? You choked me first, you bitch!” Todd snapped.

“See, this? This is why I have no intention of kissing _anyone_ , smoker or no,” Marinette said, putting her drink back on the bar. “Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”

Luka snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest as he bent down, his mouth by her ear.

“I can promise you, Marinette, kissing me would be _nothing_ like sucking off some drunk asshole in the supply closet of a dive bar whose floor would probably give you an STI,” he whispered. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious. Or both. She also wasn’t sure why she found the idea – both of kissing him and…otherwise – so damn appealing. But before she could properly process what he’d told her, he was squeezing her middle and stepping away, moving to wrap an arm around the shoulders of their recently departed, who were still bickering. He led them away, chatting amicably about how _hey, at least you went out with a bang_ , and it took another moment before she could clear her head enough to jog after him.

She never noticed the pack of cigarettes he’d abandoned on the bar.

Hours later, a disgruntled employee would open the supply closet to retrieve the broom to sweep up for the night. They would scream when they found the bodies of Claire and Todd, Todd with his head tipped back, skin blue, eyes wide and bulging, with the foam from a chemical tablet partially dissolved in his gaping mouth. His head would be thrown back against the shelf, the box with the tablets knocked over and spilling out on the top. Claire would be on her knees, his cock shoved violently down her throat, bits of hair pulled out where his hands had fisted during his death spasms, tears dried on her cheeks, eyes bulging, face also blue as she stared up at him.

The bar would be shut down for less than a day, the bodies squirrelled away by the local authorities, a quick clean done, and back open for business by the next night.


	22. Bleeding Out (XY; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They left him with the garbage, because that's all he was to them. Garbage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Bleeding Out  
> Character/Pairing: Xavier-Yves Roth  
> Rating: K+ / PG / Most Ages  
> Notes: DLM AU. I’ve been wanting to do XY’s death, but honestly I’m not the biggest XY fan and was having trouble with it. (Look for two updates today & tomorrow. I was good on my schedule, and then we had some home/repair issues that wiped me out and I completely forgot about updating. Sorry, y’all!)

Robert Roth was…not the most pleasant man to be the acquaintance of. He was loud, quarrelsome, boisterous, and more than a bit of a drunkard. He had his hands in the pockets of pretty much every name in town, or maybe it was he had every name in _his_ pockets. Mr. Roth was one of those new money types, you see, that was so distasteful to all the old money that came before. What was worse was that no one seemed to know where his money came from, anyway, which made his sudden presence among the old money crowds of the Parisian scene that much more jarring. He walked with the confidence and swagger of a man who owned the town while the town was secretly wishing he would just walk out.

What was even worse was his son, Xavier-Yves. Sorry. _XY._ Xavier hated his name about as much as he hated his father, which was somewhat ironic considering how similar the two were. If there had been any good in the obnoxious blond youth it had been stamped out by time and abuse many years ago. XY carried his own sort of swagger, one born of presumed privilege and too many boxed ears behind the closed doors of home. If he was loud and mean to everyone he came across, it was only because his father was loud and mean to him, and his mother was too blitzed out on her vapors to care.

“We own this world now, Xavier,” Mr. Roth had told him once, back when they were new to Paris and Xavier-Yves was still young. “Remember that. And if anyone tries to make you forget it, crush them like the bugs they are.”

Robert Roth had no use for weakness in his new world.

Unfortunately, for all his bluster, Xavier-Yves was nothing but weak.

Oh, he played a good game at it, though. He saw the way his father carried himself and tried his best to imitate the swagger. Perhaps that’s what got him, in the end.

One shouted insult too many. One more drunken brawl in a back alley establishment his father frequented but would kill him for attending if he knew. A few more shots, the liquor more intoxicating and more illegal than the wine his father preferred, and a few more ounces of inebriated courage to see him through. One word in one wrong ear. One flash of coin in the wrong eye.

Paris was a dangerous place in those days, and Xavier looked much the same as any worthless drunk wandering the streets. When the more respectable citizens heard the moaning coming from the bags piled in the alley, it was only natural they assumed one of their lesser counterparts had drunk himself stupid again. No one got close enough to see the knife wounds, and no one could smell the sick of death over the stench of cheap booze and rotting garbage.

Because that was where they left him to bleed out, in the end. In the garbage.

Because that’s what the Roths were, to them. Garbage.


	23. Missing & Presumed Dead (Jagged Stone; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luka lands a Very Important Person Reap: his estranged father, rock legend Jagged Stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Missing & Presumed Dead  
> Character/Pairing: Jagged Stone, Luka Couffaine  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: DLM AU. I was gonna use Dingo for this prompt, but then this idea came along and. Well. This is another “too many ideas for the space/longer than I intended/needs fleshing out in the full AU”, because I love the idea but it’s rushed here (I wanted a bit with Luka running into Anarka after the fact, but it didn’t make it here). xD Anyway. Last two tomorrow!

Mendeleiev had slapped the manila envelope down on the table in front of Luka the day before with the declaration that it was his _lucky day_. Very Important Person Reaps were rare, after all, and it was an honor to get one – especially when you were a reaper as new to the game as Luka Couffaine. Still, Luka had proven himself more than competent, and apparently upper management thought he would handle the reap swimmingly.

“That’s bullshit!” Théo had whined, his eyes darting from the envelope in Luka’s hands to Mendeleiev’s smug face. Fred’s upper lip had curled in distaste as he sipped his coffee, but Luka knew that was more from Théo’s outburst and less any jealousy over the reap. Fred wasn’t a fan of loud things, and Théo tended to be very loud. “That is absolute bullshit!”

“Yeah!” Xavier had chimed in. For someone who had died more than a century ago, Xavier had been a bit too fond of the 1980s and talked, acted, and looked like he still belonged there. (He was a big fan of garish purple track suits that Luka just wanted to burn.) “I’ve been dead _way_ longer and still haven’t gotten a VIPR! Let me have this one, Mendy!”

“Call me _Mendy_ again and I’ll remind you why you still haven’t,” Mendeleiev bit out. She accepted her to go coffee from their usual waitress with a smile. “Besides, I don’t assign ‘em. You brats know that. Apparently Luka has an in, so he’s the best choice for this reap. Be at the airport bright and early, sunshine.”

Luka hadn’t thought much of it until he’d opened the envelope and seen the names on his post-it.

  1. Stone.



  1. Rolling.



And while they’d be departing the Charles de Gaulle Airport at 8:15a the next morning, the post-it note got a little vague after that. Coordinates – somewhere over the Bay of Biscay, if he was remembering correctly? – around noon. Which meant…God. There was a return ticket from somewhere in Spain, but if she made him swim to the coast…

And she had been right; he _did_ have an in. Sort of. He had met Jagged Stone before. Once. When he was younger. He’d been a big fan until the day Jagged showed up at the Liberty, a crying, snotty mess, begging _Nanarchy_ to come back to him. He’d fired his guitarist over something stupid (Luka couldn’t remember what, but he kept thinking it had something to do with breakfast), and Anarka had been the best guitarist he knew – couldn’t she help him out in a pinch? Which had been news to Luka and his sister, who knew their ma used to record and was good enough that the royalty checks kept them afloat (…literally) but had had no idea that she’d been _Jagged fucking Stone’s_ partner.

Anarka never would have told them, he was pretty sure. Just like she’d never told them about their father. Probably because they ended up being the same man.

“He’s incredibly talented, t’be sure,” Anarka had slurred that night over too much rum, “but he’s absolutely worthless beyond his musical talent. Too emotional, too erratic, too… _jagged_. We’re better off without him, b’y.”

Luka and Juleka had stayed quiet during the entire visit, trying to stay out of the way. Out of sight and out of mind. If Jagged Stone had caught his glare on the way out, the rock god never mentioned it.

…but it had been kinda funny how Kitty Section had been booked in one of the better bars in Paris – one they’d been trying to land for over a year – the next week. And how the guitar Juleka had been pining over for months suddenly showed up on deck.

Despite their personal history, Luka was still a professional. So he showed up at the airport when he was supposed to, his old guitar Claire (the second, not the original, as she’d died with him in that explosion) strapped to his back, and reported as Jagged Stone’s new guitarist. For the show in Bilbao. And he boarded the plane with Jagged and his manager (they had been part of a late-night press thing and the rest of the band had gone ahead; Luka was only joining them on Jagged’s private jet because he’d been a last-minute replacement) like he’d never met them before. And he popped their souls right away, during the handshakes and introductions, and sat as far from Jagged as he could, pulling Claire out and noodling for most of the flight.

“Nice guitar,” Jagged had commented, about two hours into the flight (and two hours before the end). “My boy used to have one like that.”

“…you have a kid?” Luka asked, trying to sound surprised. Jagged had never publicly acknowledged any children, after all, and from the look Penny was shooting him Luka assumed he wasn’t supposed to.

“…no, not…not anymore,” Jagged said, and if Luka didn’t know any better he’d say Jagged sounded…sad. Weird. “His mum and I never quite saw eye to eye. I didn’t even know about him or his sister until a few years back, and then…well. Anyway, it’s a nice guitar.”

“And then what?” Luka asked, unable to stop himself. The smile Jagged gave him almost made him regret it.

“He died,” Jagged said. “Stage accident. Shame. He was good. Damn good. I had hoped…I wanted to get him on the road with me. Actually get to know him a bit, you know? But his mum…and then he was gone. I went to his funeral, but his mum chased me away. Never had the balls to seek out his sister after that.”

Luka had to smile. Of course his ma had.

“Jagged,” Penny said, a warning in her voice, and Jagged rolled his eyes before grinning at him.

“Anyway! So you’re the new face, eh? What d’ya say we kill some time and rock out a bit, eh? Still a long flight ahead of us, and the practice will make the show smoother!”

…and if it wasn’t for some weird sense of…not nostalgia, not really, but…missed opportunities? An old fanboy he never could quite shake? Some romanticized notion of playing with his dad? The fact that his dad would be dead in two hours and he’d never get the chance again? Whatever it was, Luka said yes, and they played straight up to the engine failure. Jagged died moments after the initial turbulence, when the plane lurched and he was thrown against the ceiling of the cabin hard enough to snap his neck. Penny got impaled on one of the spare guitars when the plane hit the water. He’d learn later that the pilot had had a heart attack and had been reaped back at the airport.

Everything was kind of a blur after that. Luka remembered somehow, miraculously, Claire had been fine (he would’ve fucking murdered Mendeleiev if she hadn’t been), and somehow he’d gotten out of the plane before it sunk too deep. He’d broken the surface, Claire strapped on his back, to find Jagged and Penny’s souls sitting in a dazed sort of confusion in a small fishing boat with Mendeleiev. She held a hand out to him that he slapped away before hauling himself over the side.

“You owe me a pack of strings,” he said, coughing out some seawater he’d accidentally inhaled. She raised an eyebrow over her sunglasses, and he took the towel she’d offered him and began drying Claire off. “Saltwater corrodes the shit out of ‘em.”

“Fair enough,” Mendeleiev said with a shrug. “Strings are cheaper than an entire guitar, and you needed to look the part.”

“L-Luka?” Jagged’s spirit asked, gawking at him. Luka ignored him, ducking his head under the towel and making a big show of drying off his hair. “Luka. Oh my God. Pen, we’re dead. We’re dead and that’s _Luka_.”

Somehow Mendeleiev got them off to their lights without Luka having to say anything, and then she was steering them back to the coast. The trip back to Paris was quiet, but most trips with Mendeleiev were quiet, and then it was back to business as usual. Another day, another reap, rinse and repeat. Try to ignore the news coverage of the plane that went down, the bodies of rock legend Jagged Stone, his manager Penny Rolling, an unnamed guitarist, and pilot still missing but presumed dead. Fans worldwide shocked and in mourning. Candlelight vigils outside every venue left on his current tour. The music world rocked to its core, and less than five years after the death of Cobain.

But life moved on, as did death. As they always did.

Mendeleiev never replaced his strings. He didn’t feel bad when the warped strings snapped not long after and sliced open her face.


	24. Hiding an Injury (Théo; DLM AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Théo Barbot was twenty when he left for the war. He was twenty-three when he thought he'd survived it. (DLM AU.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hiding an Injury  
> Character/Pairing: Théo Barbot  
> Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen  
> Notes: DLM AU. Tried to cover how most of Mendeleiev’s group died. I think Fred was the only one I missed? That’ll have to be its own thing, maybe a little Reaper History with each chapter as the team’s full backstory. AFTER OTHER THINGS ARE DONE.

Théo Barbot was twenty years old when the archduke was shot and the world went to hell. Three months past his birthday he left his small flat behind, what would have been the greatest sculpture of his life left half-finished under a sheet, and was shipped out to the front line. He had done surprisingly well in the war, at least at first. For someone who had always abhorred violence and fighting. He was an artist, after all. His soul was tortured enough without the bloodshed.

The law ordered he serve three years, which the _option_ to reenlist at the end. They called it an option, at least, but times were getting desperate and France needed men. He’d heard tell of plenty of men who hadn’t been gifted a choice in the matter at the end of those three years.

He was twenty-three with two months to freedom when the sickness struck. The trenches were riddled with their fair share of diseases, but this was something new. Something worse. Something that started taking down man after man, his comrades, his friends, then the nurses that cared for them. Word spread like wildfire: one hundred and fifty _thousand_ men sent back from the front lines, all sick and dying. Rumors of consumption, every cough echoing in the night and making him jump.

But somehow…he stuck it out. Somehow he dodged the bullet – at least that one. Ironic that it was an actual bullet that sent him home. Ironic that he ended up catching the consumption from an old buddy who sought him out when news of his return hit town. He had been so glad to be home, so glad to be alive, so glad to see an old friend…he never thought anything about grabbing that drink when Marc asked him out. Was too drunk to think anything when Mark coughed into a handkerchief at the end of the night, ferreting the blood-stained cloth away before Théo’s glassy eyes could notice.

It set in quick enough. By the time he learned of Marc’s death, he was close enough to it himself.

And still his masterpiece was unfinished. His hands were too weak to hold his tools. The coughing kept him up late into the night, the disease tapping what little remained of his strength during the day.

“It’s a shame you can’t finish her,” his old teacher commented the day he came to view the piece. “She would have been beautiful.”

“She still will be,” Théo said stubbornly, pursing his lips and swallowing back the cough. His head was swimming, and he sat down on a stool until the dizzy spell passed. “I…I will recover. I am young and hale. I will beat this.”

“Many better off than you haven’t,” his teacher said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Théo shivered as his hand brushed down his arm, a chill like death stealing over him.

“I must finish her,” he said stubbornly. “She is…she can’t…I…”

And then the coughing hit, and then he was toppling from the stool, and then his head was hitting the table with his tools, and then he was hitting the ground, and the tools were falling, and then…

He could breathe easier than he had in months as he stood to the side of the statue, staring at his still body. His teacher was gone, but the dark-haired woman he had come with had returned from his balcony, where she’d been enjoying a cigarette. She frowned at the statue, the cigarette still in her mouth. He had asked her to step outside, afraid the burning would spark with some of the open chemicals he used. It seemed that no longer mattered.

“I don’t see it,” she said, shrugging as she looked at the statue. “But I was never one for _artists_.”

Théo Barbot was twenty-three when he died in 1917, and he was never sure if it was the consumption or the point chisel through the eye that got him in the end.


	25. Shot with an Arrow (Dingo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dingo finds a crossbow below deck. It...goes about as well as can be expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Shot with an Arrow  
> Character/Pairing: Dingo King (OC), Luka Couffaine  
> Rating: M / PG-16 / Adult  
> Notes: Not part of the DLM AU! Ok, going out with a bang. Bc there’s been too much stress the past few days & my dumbass son always…er…usually always makes me happy. If you don’t know Dingo…um…shit, this is about as good an intro as any. xD

“Oh. My. _God._ ”

Luka’s fingers stilled on Claire’s strings. He had known Dingo King long enough to know that anything that got him _that_ excited wasn’t a good thing. With the Captain’s hoarding tendencies, there were a lot of _not good_ things aboard the Liberty for Dingo to get into. Sure enough, not a minute later Dingo came rushing up to the sunroom, a…

Oh.

Dear.

God.

A fucking _crossbow_ in his hands.

Where the hell had Anarka Couffaine procured a _crossbow_ , and how had he never seen it before?

(He knew about the harpoon gun. He also remembered the hospital visit from the time Dingo had learned about the harpoon gun. Luka was, quite understandably, suddenly very afraid.)

“…what…uh…what’cha got there, buddy?” Luka asked, sitting up a bit straighter on the loveseat. He put Claire in the stand beside him and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clenching and unclenching in anxious fists. He was ninety percent sure Dingo wasn’t holding the crossbow correctly. Granted, he wasn’t too well-versed in crossbows, beyond knowing that one guy on the zombie show Jules liked used one, but he was pretty sure the shooty part wasn’t supposed to be _pointed at your fucking face._

“The Captain had it downstairs! How cool is this? Can you believe it?” Dingo crowed, spinning the crossbow like it was a baton and aiming at one of the potted trees on the other side of the room. Like he was fucking Jeremy Renner auditioning for the next Marvel movie. He pantomimed shooting it, like he was holding a rifle instead of a crossbow (even making little _pyew-pyew_ noises), and Luka felt the knot in his stomach getting tighter. There was no way this was going to end well.

His hand absently started rubbing at his wrist, missing the cool, comforting weight of his Miraculous. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

“Ding, maybe you shouldn’t be…watch out!” he cried, leaping into action when Dingo’s finger slipped on the trigger and the bolt flew with a _swish_ into the doorframe. They both turned wide, horrified eyes towards the door to find Brielle standing there, two cans of lemonade in her hands, staring back at them with equally horrified eyes. They watched as her eyes slid to the doorframe beside her, where the bolt was still quivering at eye level. She sucked in a breath, her hands gripping the cans so hard both burst all over the black Blink-182 shirt she had stolen from Dingo back in their first year of lycée. (The band was too mainstream for her, but she liked their logo.)

“B-Bri! You ok, babe?” Dingo squeaked. “Shit, I am so sorry! That…that wasn’t…here, I got this, I…”

“Dingo, stop!” Luka cried, trying to grab the crossbow from him before he could reload it. Dingo waved him off, insisting _he had this_ , but past experience had taught them all he very much did not.

“I’m gonna steal a shirt from Juleka,” Brielle said, throwing the mostly-empty cans on deck and ripping her soaked shirt off. Casually and quickly dismissing herself from the situation and any further involvement in the mess Dingo was bound to cause. “Asshole.”

“Wha… _oh my God tits_ ,” Dingo gaped, and Luka jumped back with a curse as Dingo _dropped the fucking crossbow_ , which he had somehow managed to reload, and…

Luka watched, horrified (yet knowing all the while it would happen because it was fucking _Dingo_ and _of fucking course he would_ ), as the impact released the trigger and the bolt fired straight up through Dingo’s jaw and…

There was a moment – a horrible, dazed moment, where Dingo’s sunglasses fell from his face and his glazed brown eyes met Luka’s – where Luka wondered if crossbows had safeties and, if so, why the fuck it wasn’t on. And how Dingo had managed to land the headshot instead of…well, honestly Luka would have sworn he’d shoot himself in the dick. It was a more _Dingo_ way to go. And then time kicked back in, and Dingo was falling to the deck, and Luka was once again wishing he had Sass with him.

“Bri! Call 1-1-2!”


End file.
